Cody Snavely
Game 147, 9/13/2024: Dodgers 2, Braves 6
ATLANTA, GA — On a rainy night in Atlanta, Georgia, the Los Angeles Dodgers were looking to get back on track after stumbling in back-to-back series, splitting a two-game set with the Freeway rival Los Angeles Angeles and narrowly escaping a three-game set with the red-hot Chicago Cubs with one win.
Prior to the game, the Dodgers had some terrible news for the starting rotation. Right-handed pitcher Tyler Glasnow, who has been out since mid-August due to right elbow tendonitis, had his live batter session canceled at the last minute due to similar soreness in the arm, which landed him on the 15-day injured list in the first place.
With the news and Glasnow’s future for the 2024 season cloudy, it puts more pressure on tonight’s starter, rookie right-handed pitcher Landon Knack, as a potential postseason roster spot is calling his name.
So far in his stint with the big league club, Knack has been an above-average arm for the Dodgers as the righty has a 3.00 ERA in fifty-four innings pitched this season spread across nine starts and two relief appearances.
However, Knack would not have his best stuff tonight as the Atlanta Braves would get a big lead early in the first two innings of tonight’s game.
The scoring started in the bottom of the first inning, as former Oakland A’s first baseman and Freddie Freeman‘s replacement in Atlanta, Matt Olson, knocked in outfielder Jorge Soler with a one-out RBI double. However, Knack would limit the damage despite the Braves stringing together three straight hits.
Things would unravel for Knack in the second inning as the Braves would put up a crooked number, scoring four runs and pushing the Atlanta Braves to a five-run lead thanks to a pair of two-run bombs by Gio Urshela and Soler.
In his first eleven starts this season, Knack has only allowed four runs once. In two innings so far tonight, the Atlanta Braves, a team fighting for its postseason lives, have pegged him with five runs.
With Knack’s struggles tonight and the weather conditions, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts would opt to go to his bullpen with Michael Grove, Brusdar Graterol, and Daniel Hudson, limiting the damage, all throwing a scoreless frame in this one.
It would be up to the Dodgers offense to chip away to win tonight, and it would get started with a solo home run by veteran shortstop and National League East killer Miguel Rojas in the third inning.
The Dodgers would add another run in the fourth inning as Tommy Edman would continue his offensive tear this week. In three consecutive games, the switch hitter has seven RBI and five hits, four of which are home runs.
However, the Dodgers had no other answers for Atlanta Braves rookie right-handed pitcher Spencer Schwellenbach, who would give the Braves a much-needed quality start, tossing six innings, allowing two runs on four hits while striking out six Dodgers hitters.
The Braves bullpen also shut down the Dodgers’ offense for the final three innings and was able to navigate around the Dodgers’ “big three,” with Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman going a combined 0-for-11 tonight.
Overall, the Dodgers lost to the Atlanta Braves tonight in their opening game of this four-game wraparound series. Game two will be tomorrow night at 7:20 p.m. local time when right-handed pitcher Jack Flaherty will face National League Cy Young favorite lefty Chris Sale.
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